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LETTER 



TO THE 



HON. DANIEL WEBSTER, 



ON THE 



Ctitn|irnini0f0 n! tjie CanstitiitiaE. 



BT 



O^^ 



S; GRAHAM 



HOPKINS, BRIDGEMAN & CO. 



1850. 






:j) ^ ^ \ '. 



JOHN A. GRAT, 

79 Fulton strut, N. Y. 



LETTER TO DANIEL WEBSTEE. 



HON. D.\NIEL WEBSTER : 



Sir : — I have read, vnih earnest attention, botli yotir speech on the sub- 
ject of slavery, dehvered in the Senate of the United States on the 7th 
of March hst, and your letter of the loth of May to the citizens of IS^ew- 
buryport. 

I am not an " Abolitionist," in the sectarian nor sectional sense of the 
term. That is : I ha\-e never belonged to the " Abolition party," _ the 
" Liberty part}^' nor the -'Free Soil party;" but in my political princi- 
ples, associations and actions, have always been thoroughly and steadfastly 
a Whig. 

For more than thirty years I have seriously contemplated sla^-ery as a 
condition involving human rights and liuman sensibilities, affections and 
sufferings ; and, hv nearly as long a time, I have contemplated the slavery 
of these United States, in its relation to the political and civil institutions 
of our country. With the most fervent of the Abolitionists, I have desired 
that slavery might cease to exist on earth. With the most staunch 
adherent to constitutional pro\-isions and guarautees, I have seen the diffi- 
culty of removing it 1)y political action. At the same time, I have seen, 
with the vision of philosophical certainty, that the human soul, in its spe- 
cific unity, identity and permanency, was gradually progressing in_ the 
development of its intellectual and moral attributes, and expanding Itself 
to the comprehension of clearer, broader, and more accurately defined 
scientiiic truth concerning the nature, relations, and interests of man ;^ and 
could not, by any possible conservative coercion, be confined in those forms 
and institutions which Avere the embodiments of the ideas and sentiments 
of an earlier state. I have seen, with anxiety and awe, that the slavery of 
our country could not remain as it Avas ; that a change in the condition of 
the slave, in the relation between the master and the slave, and in the rela- 
tion between the domestic institution of slavery and the political institution 
which constitutes our national unity, must inevitobhj take place ; that no 
power of earth could prevent it { that no power of heaven would. I 
have seen that the only modes in which the inevitable change can take 
place, are : first, voluntary emancipation on the part of the slaveholdeis ; 
second, pohtical action in the exercise of assumed, not to say usurped, 
legislative authority ; third, political disunion and cinl war ; and fourth, 
servile insurrection and war. I have seen that the first of these is incom- 
parably the safest and most to be desired ; that the last is incomparably 
the most horrible and most to be deprecated ; and yet that there is, per- 



i 



LETTER TO THE 



haps, least reason to hope for the first, and most reason to dread the last 
two. 

With such a field of contemplation before me, it was with great solici- 
tude that I, in common with all the people of these United States, waited 
for you to exert your mighty intellect and mightier moral power in an 
etfort for the wise adjustment of the great question, the discussion of 
which is now terribly agitating the whole nation. 

I have read your speech and your letter with a mind predisposed to be 
favorably impressed by your arguments, and to estimate accurately the 
force of your rea.soning ; and while I acknowledge that you handle your 
subject with the ability and skill of a gifted and sound constitutional law- 
yer, yet I must with sadness confess, that your performance does not afford 
me the satisfaction I had hoped for. Your position seems to be more 
legal than legitimate ; that is, more in accordance with the letter than 
with the spirit of the Constitution ; your attitude more that of a politi- 
cian than of a statesman ; and yom* object more partial and palhative, 
than complete and determinate. 

No man is more familiarly acquainted with the political history of this 
country, in relation to the subject in question, than yourself, nor better 
understands the force of its facts in illustration of our fundamental pohti- 
cal principles. 

It is notorious that, previous to our Declaration of Independence, slavery 
existed in all the colonies. It was not an institution peculiar to some of 
them ; peculiarly cherished and jealously guarded and defended by some, 
and repudiated, opposed and denounced by others. In this single inter- 
est, the people of the colonies were as much one 2:)eo])le^ as they were in 
their resistance to the usurpation? and oppressions of the British Govern- 
ment. 

Again : it is notorious that in the original draft of our Declaration of 
Independence — a document compiled from the common ideas, common 
sentiments, and common dialect of the whole people — one among its most 
grievous charges against the parent government, was that that govern- 
ment had atrociously forced slavery upon the colonies ; an evil which all 
felt and deplored ; a wickedness which all abhorred. 

Again : when the war of the Revolution was ended, the colonies, united 
by a loose federal compact, were deeply in debt ; immense unsettled ter- 
ritories belonged to som6 of the colonies ; conflicting claims of different 
colonies threatened serious difficulties ; the revenues and financial resources 
of the Union were extremely small. In this state of things, the Federal 
Cono-ress urged and importuned those States which claimed the unsettled 
territories, to surrender their claims to the General Government for the 
purpose of removing all difficulties, paying the pubUc debt, and more 
fully and firmly establishing the Union. 

When the territories were, at length, ceded to the United States, though 
some of the Northern States had, in form, abolished slavery, yet such wjis 
the general condition of things, that all the people of the United States 
were still one peojile in their ideas and sentiments respecting slavery. 
There was no sectional anti-slavery party nor interest ; there was no sec- 
tional pro-slavery party nor interest. The anti-slavery interest was 
thoroughly national, pervading alike all parts of the Union, and having 
its source in the common sentiment of the entu-e people ; a sentiment 



HON. DANIHL WEBSTER. 6r 

which resulted from their own common expeiience under the wrongs and 
oppressions of the British Government, and in their struggles to achieve 
and establish their own liberties upon the great natm-al and unalienable 
rights of humanity. The pro-slavery interest was strictly pei'sonal, and 
had its source purely in the property relation of the slave to the master. 
Its primary sphere was the despotic sovereignty of each individual slave- 
holder, and the aggregate of these, constituted the pro-slavery common- 
wealth which asked for nothing but its own internal validity and security. 
It contemplated slavery only as a domestic institution, and not in the least 
as a civil and political element ; and therefore it was not incompatible 
with the general anti-slavery interest ; but in ahnost all cases, the politi- 
cal, patriotic and philanthropic anti-slavery interest co-existed in the same 
breast ^vith the pei-sonal, pecuniary pro-slavery interest. The indi\'idual 
slaveholder, from the force of conditions and circumstances, felt constrained 
to retain his own personal slave property, while, at the same time, he per- 
ceived the utter incompatibility of slavery -with the great natural and 
unalienable rights and Uberties of man, and consequently deplored its ex- 
istence and deprecated its extension, and, for the most part, even its con- 
tinuance. So that, notmthstanding whatever pro-slavery interest existed 
at that time, the anti-slavery interest was none the less universal. As an 
entire nation, the people regarded slavery as an evil to be tolerated where 
it could not be removed, and to be jyi'ccluded where it did not exist. All, 
with one mind and one heart — the people of the South as weU as of the 
North — were earnestly desirous of arresting the progress of the evil by 
the strongest and most eifectual measm-es consistent with the asserted and 
unsurrendered domestic rights of the slaveholding citizens of the existing 
States. 

Accordingly, when, in the early part of 1784, the Federal Congress, at 
the instance of Mr. Jefferson, contemplated the enactment of an ordi- 
nance precluding slavery from all the unsettled territories of the Union, 
there was not a delegate present from any State in the Union who was 
opposed to that measm-e, so far as it went simply to preclude and prohibit 
the existence of slavery in the unsettled territories, and thus effectually to 
prevent its further extension in this country. But all who were opposed 
to the measure in any respect, opposed it solely in \iew of its adaptation 
to endanger the security of slave property in the existing States, by open- 
ing a wide field for the irretrievable escape of slaves from servitude. Let 
this point be protected ; let no action of the Federal Government invalidate 
the security of slave property in the original States, and their unsurren- 
dered and partially settled territories, and no delegate in Congress, and 
the people of no State in the Union, then cared how effectually the Fed- 
eral Congress precluded, and how eternally it prohibited, the existence of 
slavery in the territories which had been, or ever should be, ceded to or 
acquired by the United States. 

Consequently, when, in 1787, Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, supphed 
to the prohibitory ordinance of Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, a provision 
for the recovery of all slaves who should escape from ser\ace in the slave 
States into the free territories and States formed from them, the ordi- 
nance thus amended was unanimously passed by Congress, even in the fidl 
consciousness that, in so doing, they exercised, usurped, or, at least, assumed 
authority or undelegated pow<jr ; because they were, at the same time, 



6 lETTEK TO THE 

fully aware that they acted in accordance ■with the universal sentiment of 
the])eople; and, therefore, the very presuinption of the act on the part 
of CongTess was a most powerful element in the demonstration that the 
entire ]ieople of the Union were in favor of limiting slavery to the area 
where it was already planted and established, and opposed to its further 
extension ; and this demonstration was fully contirmed and sanctioned by 
the universal acquiescence of the people. 

Contemporaneously with the session of the Federal Congress in which 
this prohibitory ordinance was passed, delegates from the several States 
were in convention, framing a Constitution for "a more perfect union ;" 
and here, as in Congress, there was not a delegate from any State who 
was opposed to the insertion of any proN-ision into the Constitution, pro- 
hibitory of the extension of slavery, so that it did not, in any way nor 
measure, invalidate nor endanger the right of slaveholding and the secu- 
rity of slave projjerty within the proper spheres of the jurisdiction of the 
then existing State governments. 

And when the Constitution was framed and submitted to the people 
for their adoption, one of the strong arguments which Mr. Madison urged 
upon the people to induce them to adopt the new Constitution, was that 
the old federal compact gave to Congress no authority to prohibit the 
extension of slavery. 

I do not employ this reasoning to show that the Constitution actually 
does give such authority to Congress, though it is fully evident that Mr. 
Mad'.son argued with such an understanding of it ; but I employ it solely 
to show that the universal sentiment of the entii-e people of the United 
States was then opposed to the further extension of slavery, and that Mr. 
Madison, being well aware of this, pressed the argument in question as 
being, in the existing state of things, adapted to be cogently effective. 

Mr. Madison ha"^ been generally regarded as pre-eminently one of the 
fathers of the Constit;ition,'and, as a statesman, most thoroughly acquainted 
vrith its principles, and in the highest degree competent to expound its 
provisions in accordance with the spirit and intentions with which it was 
framed bv the Convention and adopted by the people. And being him- 
self a Southern man and a slaveholder, it is not to be denied nor ques- 
tioned that, when he urged the above-mentioned argument in favor of 
the adoption of the Cons'titution, he appealed to a universal, decided, and 
strong sentiment of the entire people of the United States against the fur- 
ther extension of slavery. It is certain Mr. Madison and ]\Ir. Jefferson 
were then earnestly opposed to the further extension of slavery ; and it 
is evident that Mr.'jMadison was certain in his own mind that the entire 
people were earnestly oppjosed to the further extension of slavery. It is 
manifest that Mr. Madison fully believed that the Constitution would give 
Cono-ress power to prohibit the further extension of slavery, and that one 
of the certain effects of the adoi)tion of it l)y the people, would be such a 
prohibition ; and it is equally manifest that the entire people, in adopting 
the Constitution, fully believed, with Mr. Madison, that it would give such 
a power to Congress, and that that power would certainly be exercised to 
such an end. 

Now, sir, the grand and irrefragable conclusion which I draw from all 
these statements is that, whatever may be the fair construction of the lan- 
guage of the Constitution, taken by itself and without reference to the 



HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. 7 

spirit and intent of those who framed and those who adopted it, in rela- 
tion to any particular subject embraced in its pronsions, yet, nevertheless, 
it is most certain that both they who framed and the}' who adopted the 
Constitution were opposed to the further extension of slavery in this 
country, and that they earnestly meant and intended that, under the 
Constitution, Congress should possess and exercise the pow'er of prohibit- 
ing utterly and for ever the extension of slavery beyond the then existing 
States of the Union and their unsurrendered territories, in which it was 
already planted and established. 

And, sir, believing that no man better understands all this than your 
self, I am chsappointed and grieved that you did not bravely plant your- 
self in the position I have marked out, and heroically exert the might of 
your mind, and the majesty of your political and moral influence, in its 
support and defense ; that, instead of saying to the immensely extended 
slaveholding portion of our Union — " The Constitution recognizes your 
right of property in slaves, and guarantees to you the I'ight to pursue and 
reclaim your fugitive slaves in every part of the United States and their 
territories, and I confess that the provision of the Constitution in this 
respect has been egregiously \iolated by the people, and, in a measure, 
nullified by the Legislatures of the free States, and I am wilhng and 
ready to support a measure by which the letter of the constitutional 
provision relating to fugitive slaves shall be strictly executed," — I am 
disappointed and grieved, sir, that instead of saying this, you did not 
say i to the slaveholding portion of the Union: " True, the provision 
of the Constitution says your fugitive slaves shall be delivered w]) to you, 
wherever you may find and claim them in the United States ; true, this 
provision has, in eifect, become a nullity in most of the free States ; and 
many of the people of the fi'ee States have been active and zealous both 
in encouraging 3'om- slaves to escape from bondage and in screening them 
from your pursuit, and preventing your recovery of them. But what is 
the vhtue and the scope of this provision ? For what intent was it inserted 
in the Constitution ? We speak of the compromises of the Constitution. 
What are they ? What is their natm-e ? In all cases but one, they are 
mocUfications of local interests, which neither sacrifice nor infringe any 
great principle of human rights ; modifications in which peculiar sectional 
privileges or advantages were in some measure abridged, for the sake of 
securing important national privileges or advantages. But here, in this 
one compromise concerning fugitive slaves, a gTeat fundamental principle 
of human right, set forth in our Declaration of Independence, as inherent 
and inahenable in every human being, — the right to ' liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness,' — is sacrificed. For what ? In God's own name, for 
what ? In what consists the compromise of this particular provision of 
the Constitution ? There must be a compact, a mutual agreement, a 
reciprocal obligation between two or more parties, or there is no compro- 
mise ; and the obhgations of a compromise are not binding on one of the 
parties when they have been violated by the other. What, then, is the 
specific character of the compromise contained in the constitutional pro- 
\-ision for the recovery of fugitive slaves ? The grand object of ' forming a 
more perfect Union,' and of securing its legitimate blessings, induced the 
Convention to frame and the people to adopt the Constitution. But, in 
adjusting its elemeuts and proportioning the mutual sacrifices, so as out 



6 LETTER TO tHll 

of the whole to form the best Constitution that, in the nature, condition, 
and circumstances of things, could then be adopted, specific interests were 
balanced against specific interests, and particular saciifices were made in 
reference to particular sacrifices. The planting, navigating, commercial, 
and manufactiu'ing interests were regulated ^vith reference to each other. 
And for what specific interest was the great principle of human rights 
sacrificed in the pro\Tsion relating to fugitive slaves ? The unphilosophical 
and unanalyzing mind comprehends, confusedly, the general interests of 
the Union, in its reply to this question. But this is inaccurate and un- 
satisfactory. The question has a philosophic, precise, and determinate 
answer. For what definite purpose, in particular relation to slavery, was 
the Constitution framed and adopted ? Mr. Madison, the highest human 
authority on this point, expressly declares that it was to prevent the fur- 
ther extension of slavery in this country ; to shut it up to the area in 
which it was already planted and established, under the exclusive juris- 
diction of the State Governments, with an ulterior regard to its final exter- 
mination, either by the spontaneous action of the slaveholdei-s individually, 
or by the legislative exercise of State authority. And, beyond all reason- 
able question, in the meaning and intent of the framers and adopters of 
the Constitution, the sacrifice of the great principle of human rights, in the 
constitutional provision relating to fugitive slaves, had for its specific object 
nothing less, and nothing else, than the utter and absolute prohibition of 
all further extension of slavery in this comitry, with an ulterior view to its 
final extermination. 

" Here, then, is the compromise, the mutual promise, the reciprocal obli- 
gation. On the one side — not of the North against the South — not of 
one portion of the Union, nor of one section of the country, against an- 
other — but of the universal, national, patriotic, and philanthropic anti- 
slavery uiterest of the entire people, against the particular, personal, pro- 
slavery property interest of individual slaveholders throughout the Union — 
on the one side, the contract is — ' We pohtically recognize yom' right of 
property in yom- slaves, by virtue of your State laws, and we promise to 
deliver up to you, on your claim, the slaves who escape from you to us, 
on condition that you unite with us in establishing, sustaining, and sub- 
mitting to a national government, by which all further extension of slavery 
in our country shall be absolutely and for ever prohibited ;' and on the 
other side — ' We promise to unite with you in establishuig, sustaining, 
and submitting to a national government, by which all further extension 
of slavery in om* country shall be absolutely and for ever prohibited, on 
condition that you will pohtically recognize our right of property in our 
slaves, by virtue of our State laws, and dehver up to \is, on ova- claim, all 
slaves that escape from us to you.' 

" Tliis was precisely the principle upon which the great Hebrew law- 
^ver legislated on the same subject, in a similar state of things. Slavery 
was then as universal as human society. The Hebrews were inveterately 
and incorrigibly a slaveholding people. It was morally i7n2')0ssihle that 
the usage should be absolutely and immediately abohshed. The best 
thing which was then morally possible, was to frame, and, >vith the con- 
sent and covenant of the people, establish a system of laws and ordinances 
by which the Hebrews could be restrained from reducing their own 
brethren to perpetual and hereditary bondage, and by which the slavery 



HOW. DANIEL WEBSTER. » 

among tliem could be so regulated and controlled as gradually to elevate 
the slave to the character and condition of a freeman of the Hebrew Com- 
momvealth,- and thus, with philosophical certainty, work out the exter- 
mination of slavery, pari passu with the general psychological develop- 
ment, or progressive intellectual, moral, and religious elevation of the 
people. And, specitically for the accomplishment of this object, and purely 
from conditional moral necessity/, Moses legislatively permitted the He- 
brews to buy slaves of the heathen round about them, and hold them in 
perpetual and hereditary bondage. In relation to a tew human beings, 
he, from conditional necessity, sacrificed, for a few generations, the funda- 
mental and unalienable human right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, 
for the purpose of rescuing and protecting that right in relation to all human 
beings, for ever and everywhere, from all sacrifice and violation. 

" And ]:)rccisely so the framers and adopters of our Constitution, from 
conditional necessity, sacrificed in the compromise relating to fugitive 
slaves the great fundamental and unalienable right to liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness, in relation to a few human beings for a few genera- 
tions, for the purpose of arresting the progress of slavery and prohibiting 
its further extension, and thereby gradually effecting its utter extermina- 
tion, and thus rescuing and protecting that great fundamental right, in 
relation to all the inhal:)itants of our country, for ever, from all sacrifice 
and violation. And this was an object which alone would justify the 
sacrifice. Anything less than this — anything else than this, would have 
rendered the sacrifice, by those who had uttered to the wide world our 
Declaration of Independence, and solemnly pledged their lives, their for- 
tunes, and their sacred honors for its support, a sacrilege nefariously offen- 
sive to Heaven and infamous to earth. 

" This is not florid rhetoric. It is not fancy's work. It comes not from 
a fervid imagination, nor from the fanaticism of philanthropy ; but it is 
the stern, irrefragable logic of historical tacts, and of the philosophical 
relation of thosefacts to fundamental principles. The premises are in- 
contestable, and the conclusions are inevitable. '\Yhate\er the imagined 
interests of slaveholders or pro-slavery politicians may incite, o)- prompt 
them to affirm or deny, it is impossible for any intelligent man honestly 
to contemplate the argument which I have presented, and resist the con- 
clusions to which I ha\e arrived. 

"If, therefore, we go behind the letter of the Constitution, and inform 
our souls with the unanimous and earnest spirit and intention of those 
who framed and those who adopted that solemn instrument, we are con- 
scious of the certainty that the compromise embodied in the constitutional 
provision relating to fugitive slaves, established reciprocal obligations be- 
tween the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery interests of the Union ; obliga- 
tions which no more strictly nor powerfully bind the anti-slavery interest 
to deliver up the fugitive slave who has fled from bondage in any of the 
oiwinal States of the Union, or their unsurrendered territory, in which 
slavery was planted and established before the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, than they bind the pro-slavery interest not to extend slavery beyond 
the area in which it was planted and established under the jurisdiction of 
the State governments before the adoption of the Constitution. And the 
vaUdity of these reciprocal obligations can only be preserved on the one 
side by the preser\ation of their validity on both sides. The instant the 
2 



10 lETTER TO THE 

pro-slaver}'' interest violates tbem, that instant the anti-slaveiy interest is 
absolved tVom tbem. So long as slavery was kept strictly mtbin the 
limits of the original States of the Union and tbeir misurrendered terri- 
tory, so long the several States of the Union were bound, by constitu- 
tional ])rovision, to deliver up fugitive slaves on the claim of tbeir owners ; 
but wben the pro-sla\-eiy interest of the Union bad, by tbe acc^uisitioa. 
and occupation of new territory, extended slavery beyond tbe limits of the 
original States and tbeir unsurrendered territory, the anti-slavery interest 
of \]iQ Union was wholly absolved from the constitutional obligation to 
deliver up fugitive slaves, and left, not only to the political right strenu- 
ously to oppose and resist the extension of slavery, but also to the 
primary moral right and duty to endeavor, b}^ all righteous and humane 
means,' to effect the entire removal of slavery from our country. 

" The acquisition of the territories of Louisiana, of the Floridas and of 
Texas, and the introduction of nine slaveholding States from those terri- 
tories into our constitutional Union, has rendered the provision of the 
Constitution relating to fugitive slaves an utter nullity, and left the free 
States without the shadow of a political obligation to deliver up fugitive 
slaves ; nay, has \irtually imposed upon them the duty of screening the 
fuo-itive slave from the pursuit of his master, and even of i-escuing him 
ti'om the grasp of the pursuer. And so far has the enlightened moral 
sense of the people of the free States gone ahead of their political in- 
tellio-ence and convictions, that their hearts have instinctively arrived at 
this conclusion, while yet their heads are perplexed and bewildered in the 
political labyrinths along whose windings they are led by partisan dema- 
gop'ues and sectional and mercenary politicians. But, perplexed and be- 
wildered and misled as they are, as to the practical details of political 
theory, though they may be betrayed into specious compromises by 
virtue of which slavery shall still be permitted to continue to extend itself, 
and more slave States shall be added to the Union, yet on this one point 
let none decL'ive himself — the people of the free States can never be 
brouo-ht to acknowledge the present existence of the primitive \'alidity 
of the constitutional obligation binding them to deliver up fugitive 
slaves. 'I hey know that the object for which that obligation was origi- 
nally imposed, has been utterly and flagrantly defeated by the almost 
illimitable extension of slavery, and themselves thereby not only AvhoUy 
absolved from that obligation, morally and pohtically, but thrown back 
upon the solemn obligation and duty to God and to humanity, to stand 
fixed as the decree of Heaven against the execution of any law and the 
exercise of au}^ authority which requires them to deliver up to his i)ur- 
suer him who has escaped from bondage into that Uberty to which he has 
a God-given and an unalienable right." 

Such, sir, it seems to me, is the xiew of the subject which a statesman 
of your intelligence and your professed patriotism should naturally liave 
taken and boldly presented to, and earnestly pressed upon the peo]>le of 
the United States, in the full consciousness and assurance that truth is 
niio-hty, is omnipotent, and must prevail ; and that error, however for- 
midable in aspect, however fierce in manifestation, cannot long maintain an 
aggressive energy, nor even a resisting power. 

^1 am amazed, sir, that a statesman of yoiu- large experience and ex- 
tended observation, could have been seduced into the attempt to " heal 



ao:*. DANEEt WEBSTEItk 11 

tte hurt of this people slightly," to repair the breach " with imtempered 
mortar ;" to " put far off the evil clay," and to " cry. Peace ! peace ! when 
there ^vas no peace." I am amazed, sir, that a man of your sagacity 
should not better '' discern the signs of the times." 

Since God created man, when and where did there ever exist on the 
face of the earth a people whose average intellectual and moral elevation 
excelled that of the people of Massachusetts of the present day ? And yet 
Massachusetts, as a Commonwealth, conspicuously takes the lead in all 
those |)rogressive and reformatory measures which are so incompatible 
with the extension, and even the existence of slavery ; and, in their 
effects, so disturbing and so alarming to the pro-slavery interest of the 
Union. 

Now, sir, the great question should be solved by statesmen and by 
politicians, before they take a position and assume an attitude in relation 
to it, whether this fact in the conduct of ]Massachusetts is the result of a 
suppressible fanaticism growing out of the excited sensibilities of a de- 
luded and misguided populace, or a stern and irreversible demonstration 
of that intellectual and moral advancement of man as a species, which 
laws and institutions 7nust conform lo and cannot coerce. 

That the latter is the true solution, is too clearly discernible to admit 
of a reasonable doubt ; and, therefore, it seems like inilituation or fa- 
tuity, or, what is worse, corruption, for any man or body of men to at- 
tempt, by legislative enactment or governmental authority, to suppress this 
state of things, and to force the mind and heart of man back into the nar 
rower and more darkened spheres of thought and feeling. 

Believe me, sir, for I utter the prophecy of inevitable truth — manage 
as you will, yet the current of necessity will bear onward the fultilment of 
the Divine purpose. 

From the very nature of things, slavery is an obsolescent institution. 
It must pass away. No wise man would attempt to precipitate its de- 
struction violently. No wise man will attemjit to arrest its evanescence. 
The pro-slavery interest of our country, like Charles the_ First of 
England, cannot, without self-destroying madness, insist upon its old pre- 
rogatives. It must surrender many of them or lose them all. And it 
may be assured that no measure will more speedily and more violently 
bring its head to the block, than the attempt to enforce by law the re- 
covery of fugitive slaves in New-England. Even though the process be 
attended by a trial by jury, and be conducted in the most lenient manner,^ 
it cannot long be tolerated. The conviction that man has no right of 
property in nian, has sunk too deeply into the soul, and taken too powerful 
a hold of the moral and religious feelings of the people of New-England, 
and of the free States generally, fur them to sutler a fellow-creature, who 
has achieved his own emancipation, and fled to them for liberty, to be 
seized in their midst, and tried, and on conviction of having been 
wronged, cruelly wronged from his birth, to be carried back to perpetual 
slavery. 

The people of New-England have solemnly " calculated the value of 
the Union." They know it is worth all it will procure and secure of civil 
and religious liberty, and human rights ; and no more. And much as 
they love it for the good it has yielded them and their brethren of the 
other States, and highly as they prize it for its capacity for good to the 



Ifi LEtTER TO THE 

entire people, of this country through all coming time, yet they will see 
it shivered into a thousand fragnisnts, and baptized in the blood of 
another and more thoroughly reformative i-evolution, before they will 
suffer its consecrated energies embodied in its Constitution, to be concen- 
trated and exercised in the single or the principal function of extending 
and perpetuating human slavery, and aggrandizing the slaveholding in- 
terest as a political element in the governmental economy and conduct of 
the nation. 

If the ])ro-slavery interest is not stricken with that madness which is the 
sure and fearful presage of its imminent destruction, it will at once relinquish 
all claims to the right of further extension ; withdi-aw as far as possible 
from all dependence upon and connection with the General Government ; 
retire within the precincts of exclusive State jurisdiction; say nothing, 
about fugitive slaves, and quietly and steadily direct its cou)'se to the 
earhest, safest, and best extermination. 

This, sir, is the only ground on which a true and permanent peace can 
be negotiated between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery interests of our 
country. And an iinmortal glory, infinitely greater than surrounds the 
chair of state in our Federal Republic, will rest upon that man who suc- 
cessfully negotiates such a i^eace upon such a ground. 

And* let not the slaveholding States object that this is a ground of 
negotiation which requires all the sacrifice from them and nothing from 
the free States. Let them remember that the free States ask nothing for 
themselves exclusively. They only ask in behalf of our common country, and 
of universal humanity, the ]jractical supremacy of those great principles 
which are asserted as self-evident truths in that Declaration of Independ- 
ence, for the support of which the entire people of this nation pledged 
" their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." Let them remember 
that the controversy is not between them and the free States of this Union 
merely, but between them and universal humanity ; that they are not con- 
tending for their natural and unahenable rights, but for the foctitious, 
arbitrary and tyrannous right of depriving others of their natural and 
unahenable rights. Let them "remember that Deity has no attribute 
that can take sides with the oppressor ;" and that they ought not to 
complain if their countrymen of the free States refuse to take sides 
where Deity cannot. Let them, in short, remember that the free States 
ask nothing of them but what must of necessity be yielded, and what, if 
they grant it not voluntarily, will inevitably be extorted from them by 
the irresistible hand of force, of violence, of blood ! Let them "tremble 
for their country in the remembrance that God is just;" and "know in 
this their day the things that belong to their peace." 

Sir, it is with profound astonishment that I hear a man of your emi- 
nence, of your intelligence; and of your professed regard for human 
rights, and' the great principles of civil liberty, speak as you do concern- 
ing the sensitive'ness of the people of New-England in relation to the re- 
clamation of fugitive slaves amongst them. With strong commendation 
you cite a passage from a speech of Mr. Bissell, of Ilhnois, in which he 
reprobatingly states that those Representatives in Congress, who are 
loudest in their threats of disunion on account of the violation, on the 
part of the free States, of the provision of the Constitution relating to 
fugitive slaves, are from those States which have least cause of complaint ; 



HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. 13 

\vhicli have rarely, if ever, had a slave escape from them into the fi-ee 
States of this Union ; and then you add — " Now the counterpart of the 
agitation presents an equally singular and striking aspect, in the tact that 
the greatest clamor and outcry have been raised against the cruelty and 
enormity of the reclamation of slaves in New-England, where such recla- 
mations, if ever made, have been in instances so few and far between as 
to have escaped general knowledge." 

Sir, you rebuke somewhat sarcastically, a Representative in Congress 
from Massachusetts, for suffering himscdf to be betrayed into erroneous 
reasoning by false analogy. But do you not perceive that you here fall 
under the same condemuation ? Do you not perceive that in the strict 
logic of the argument you are endeavoring to support, there is no true 
analogy between the " agitation " of the South, and that of the North, in 
relation to the reclamation of fugitive slaves ? That of the South is essen- 
ially and purely selfish, unpatriotic, unphilanthropic, and at war with the 
great fundamental principles of civil liberty and human rights. That of 
the North is essentially and purely benevolent, patriotic, philanthropic, and 
in conservation and vindication and defense of the great fundamental prin- 
ciples of civil liberty and human rights. That of the South is hostile to 
the unanimous meaning and intent of the framers and adopters of our 
national Constitution ; that of the North is congenial to that unanimous 
meaning and intent. That of the South may exist most naturally and 
most powerfully in ignorant, selfish, and sordid minds, and rage most 
vehemently where the passions prevail over reason ; that of the North 
must abound most largely and exist most energeticalh' where the intel- 
lect is most highly cultivated and most illuminated by truth, and the 
heart is most ele\ated and refined in moral and religious sentiment. 

So far, therefore, is the keen sensitiveness of the people of New-England 
concerning the reclamation of fugitive slaves from being a just object of 
reproach, it is one of the clearest and most unecnnvocal demonstrations 
of their high ]wsition in the great scale of intellectual and moral being ; 
and it is a most humiliating and painful consideration that any circum- 
stances or any influences could have brought you to contemplate it in so 
false a light ; and by the perverting media of your own vision, to give it 
so false and so odious an aspect. 

Why, sir, what had the people of Virginia to do with the Boston mas- 
sacre, the Boston Port Bill, and the Battle of Lexington ? Precisely the 
same as the people of New-England have to do with the reclamation of 
slaves in Pennsylvania. The people of Virginia clearly saw that the great 
principles of civil liberty and the natural rights of man were involved in 
the controverey and contest between the colonists of Massachusetts and the 
parent Government, and, therefore, that they were in reahty as truly and 
as deeply interested in the issue as their brethren of Massachusetts ; and 
this fired the s]iirit of Patrick Henry and his compatriots to kindle and 
inflame the " fanaticism " of the peojjle, and instigate them to rebellion 
against the parent Government. And so the people of New-England, 
having attained to that elevated intellectual and moral position which 
enables them clearly to discern and justly to appreciate the great princi- 
ples involved in the controversy respecting the reclamation of fugitive 
slaves, feel themselves bound by the highest moral and rehgious obliga- 
tions to plant themselves boldly and fiimly in the defense of those prio* 



14 lETTER TO THE HOK. DANIEL WEBSTER. 

ciples ; and it is passing strange that a United States Senator, a citizen of 
Massachusetts, should not honor rather than stigmatize them for so 
enlightened and noble a decision. 

More than once, sh, with a hardly suppressed sneer, have you seemed 
to scout the idea of " a power above the Constitution ;" and yet no man 
knows better than you that it is a cardinal principle in the political creed 
of this country, that all pohtical power is inherent in and derived from 
the people, and that this power of the people is not beneath, but above 
the Constitution ; that it is not the creature but the creator of the Con- 
stitution ; and that this power has reserved to itself the right to alter, 
and even abolish the Constitution whenever it shall fail to accomplish the 
objects for which it was framed and estal:>lished. And you well know, sir, 
and all intelligent men of this country know, that one of the objects for 
which the Constitution was framed and established, was the insuperable 
hmitation of slavery to the area in which it was then planted and estab- 
lished, under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State Governments, and by 
that means its gradual extermination from the entire domain of the 
United States. And you, at least, well know, sh, that the addition of 
every rood of slave territory which has been acquired by the United 
States since the adoption of the Constitution, Avithout the immediate and 
absolute abolition and prohibition of slavery therein, and the addition of 
every slaveholding State to our Union, excepting Kentucky and Temiessee, 
have been in direct contravention of at least one of the great objects for 
which the Constitution was framed and established, and more than any- 
thing, and all things else, brought into danger all the great objects for 
which our existing national government was instituted. 

Whenever, therefore, it is attempted, either in Congress or out of Con- 
gi-ess, to carry by the force of a mere majority, any measure in favor of 
the extension or perpetuation of slavery, or in contravention of any of 
the great objects for which the Constitution was framed and established, 
it is legitimate, it is honorable, it is statesman-hke, to appeal to " a poAver 
above the Constitution ;" that power which is indefeasibly vested in the 
people by the Creator; which is exercised under solemn responsibility to 
Heaven ; and which is exercised aright only when it is exercised in strict 
conformity witli the fixed constitutional laws which are divinely established 
in the nature of things, and necessarily deterrmne all true natural rela- 
tions and obligations. 

Yours, with respect, 

S. GRAHAJil. 
Northampton^ Mass., June 3(?, 1850. 



APPENDIX. 



It has been suggested that I should re-consider my doctrine, " that 
because the South has violated, not an express but merely an implied 
obligation, therefore the North is at liberty to violate an express one." 

My reply to this is, that I need not again re-consider what I have 
already considered and re-considered with utmost care and deliberation. 
I do not base my argument upon such grounds. I go back of the Consti- 
tution and all its provisions, and plant myself on the great principles which 
lie at the foundation of all our political and civil institutions, and on the 
great historical and notorious facts in the development and establishment 
of our free institutions. I do not argue that the South has violated an 
obligation implied in the Constitution. I contend that no such obligation is 
either expressed or implied in the Constitution ; and for the very reason 
that it was notoriously the universal, imanimous and eai'nest intention of 
the framers and adopters of the Constitution that slavery in this country 
should be confined within its then existing limits till it was exterminated. 
And so confident was the universal and unanimous expectation that 
slavery would not only be resti'icted fromfurther extension, but extermi- 
nated from the places in which it then actually existed, that the word 
"sZai;e" was not suffered to be inserted in the Constitution, solely because 
the framers and adopters of that instrument were entirely certain in their 
own minds that the slavery of this country would soon be an obsolete fact. 
And knowing the universal and unanimous intention of the framers and 
adopters of the Constitution in respect to slavery, we are entirely certain 
that if they had entertained the idea that it was possible for slavery to be 
extended as it in fact now is in this country, they would not have left it 
to an implied obligation, but they would have inserted in the Constitution 
an express and solemn prohibition, sti'ong as the Federal Ordinance of 
'87, against all further extension of slavery. For we know with certainty, 
that so far as the Constitution was framed and adopted with special refer- 
ence to slavery, it was for the purpose of confining slavery to its then 
existing limits, and with an ulterior view to its extermination even from 
those limits. Be it, therefore, particularly and solemnly remembered 
that one of the objects f!)r which the Constitution was framed and adopted was the 
restricting if slavery to its then existing limits, with an ulterior view to its 
utter extermination from the country. The extension of slavery in this coun- 
try, therefore, is not merely a violation of au implied obligation, but it is 



16 APPENDIX. 

the violation of one of the great principles on which the Constitution 
is founded, and the utter defeating of one of the great objects for 
which the Constitution was established. This will not be denied by any 
honest man who is accurately acquainted with the history of the develop- 
ment and establishment of our national independence and our national 
Government. 

Now, then, let it be considered, first, that our national Constitution 
was, to some extent, a result of concessions and compromises; or, in 
other words meaning the same thing, it was, in many of its features, 
adapted to then existing conditions and circumstances, and was so far an 
accommodated institulion. But in the very nature and necessities of things, 
all accommodated institutions are, in so far as they are accommodated, obso- 
lescent /wrj passu with the evanescence of the conditions and cirumstan- 
ces to which they are adapted. 

" None but a people advanced to a veiy high state of moral and intellec- 
tual improvement," says Mr. Calhoun, "are capable of maintaining free 
governments ; and among those who are so purified, very few indeed have 
had the good fortune of forming a Constitution capable of endurance. It 
is a remarkable fact in the history of man, that scarcely ever have free, 
popular institutions been formed by wisdom alone that have endured. It 
has been the work of fortunate circumstances, or combination of circum- 
stances — a succession of fortunate incidents of some kind, which have 
given to any people a free government. This admirable Constitu.io of 
our own was the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances. It 
was superior to the wisdom of the men who made it. It was the force 
of circumstances which induced them to adopt most of its provisions." 

"Laws and institutions," says Mr. Jefferson, "jmust go hand in hand 
with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, 
more enlightened ; as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, 
and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, insti- 
tutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as 
well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as 
civilized society to remain for ever under the regimen of their less enlight- 
ened and less civilized ancestors. **«■**» Each generation is as 
independent of the one preceding as that was of all which had gone before. 
It has, then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it 
believes most promotive of its own happiness, consequently, to accommodate 
to the circumstances in which it finds itself that received from its predeces- 
sors ; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity 
of doing this, every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the 
Constitution ; so that it may be handed on with periodical repairs from 
generation to generation to the end of time, if anything human can so long 
endure." 

" To secure the unalienable rights with which the Creator has endowed 
man," says our Declaration of Independence, "governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; 
and whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends. 



APPENDIX. 17 

it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, aud to institute a new 
government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its 
powers in such forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their 
safety and happiness." 

Let it be considered, in the second place, that the idea is too mon- 
strously and flagitiously absurd to be entertained for an instant, that the 
framers and adopters of our Constitution intended to make a perpetual 
sacrifice of a fundamental principle of civil liberty and human rights, in 
relation to any class of men ; and, therefore, it is certain that the sacrifice 
of such a principle in the provision of the Constitution for the recovery of 
fugitive slaves, was intended as a temporary expedient for the special 
purpose of limiting and ultimately exterminating the evil, in relation to 
which the force of conditions and circumstances then made such a tem- 
porary sacrifice necessary. This is too obviously and too notoriously true 
for any man to deny or doubt with honestj^ And let it be solemnly con- 
sidered, in the third place, that — to use the language of Mr. Jeflferson — 
"laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human 
mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened ; as new dis- 
coveries are made, and new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions 
change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also 
and keep pace with the times." And let it be solemnly considered that 
such has been the progress of the human mind throughout the civdlized 
world, — that such has been the advancement of truthful opinion and 
sentiment among the people of this country, and especially of the free 
States, and more particularly of New-England, that it is now a moral im- 
possibility to execute the provision of the Constitution for the recovery of fugitive 
slaves in New-England. 

This is the grand point which I make — the moral impossibility of execut- 
ing that provision, and the consequent necessity for the relinquishment of that 
provision on the part of the Pro-slavery Interest of the Union. 

If this state of things were in hostility or opposition to, or at variance 
with any of the great fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty 
and human rights on which our independence is asserted, and our civil 
and political institutions established, or if it grew out of a rebellious or 
anarchical spirit, or fanatical excitement on the part of a portion of the 
people, it might be the duty of Government to suppress it by physical 
force, and compel a compliance with the requisitions legitimately growing 
out of that provision of the Constitution. But none of these conditions 
exist. . The state of things is in perfect coincidence and harmony with 
all the great principles comprised in the political creed of this country, set 
forth in our Declaration of Independence, and constituting the foundation 
of all our civil and political institutions. The progi-ess which the people 
have made, has not been in obliquation from, but in coincidence with 
those fundamental principles, and they cannot be forced back from their 
advanced position without a violent infraction and sacrifice of all those 
fundamental principles. 

The resistance of the people of New-England to every law and meas- 
3 



18 



APPENDIX. 



lire for the recovery of fugitive slaves ■among them, is not induced by a 
rebellious nor an anarchical spirit, nor a fanatical excitement, but l)y a 
clear, deep, conscientious, religious and irrepressible conviction that a 
just regard to the natural and inalienable rights of man, to the funda- 
mental principles of all our civil and political institutions, and to our 
solemn obligations and duties to God and humanity, demands it of them. 

Let politicians and statesmen— if indeed our country is so fortunate at 
present as to possess any of this last-named class of men— consider it as 
a philosophical cerlainltj, that it is now morally impossible to effect the 
reclamation of fugitive slaves in New-England, by any laws or measures 
which the General Government can ordain. Even though the present 
Fugitive Slave Bill be repealed, and another be enacted in its stead, 
securing to the arrested fugitive a jury trial in all cases, yet the process 
issuing in the forcible return of the fugitive to bondage will not and can- 
not be tolerated by the people of New-England. 

The entire moral impossibility of effecting the forcible reclamation of 
fugitive slaves iu New-England, may, therefore, be solemnly regarded as 
a fixed state of things ; and the great problem to be solved by politicians 
and statesmen is not how they shall remove this state of things, but how 
they shall adapt the laws and institutions of the country to it. For this 
last is the only practical question open to them in the matter. 

And finally, the Pro-slavery Interest of our country may solemnly calcu- 
late, not merely the worth of the Union, but whether it is wise and expe- 
dient for it to persist in asserting and in attempting to enforce its political 
right to reclaim fugitive slaves at the sacrifice of the Union, and of all the 
great principles of civil and religious liberty and human rights, upon 
which all our free institutions are founded. 

And let the Pro-slavery Interest consider that this is not the language 
of " abolition fanaticism," but it is the language of political philosophy. It 
is not the expression of the feelings and wishes of an excited sect nor 
populace, but the stern declaration of that which, from the nature, condi- 
tion and circumstances of things, must inevitably and necessarily be so. 

When Mr. Webster first announced in the Senate his determination to 
support a bill for the more etiectual reclamation of fugitive slaves, Mr. 
Calhoun, who, though in some respects greatly misguided, was, neverthe- 
less, the most sagacious, for-slghted, profound, and gifted of modern 
American statesmen, in his own prompt and energetic manner, replied : 
"What if you do enact such a bill? The people of New-England wil \. 
not submit to it." It was from a clear philosophical perception of 
this truth — from a profound analytical discernment of things — that 
his strong conviction resulted, which made him utterly despair of the 
possibility of a future harmony between the pro-slavery interests and the 
anti-slavery sentiments of this country. He clearly perceived that there 
was no alternative for the slaveholding States but disunion, or a surrender 
of the political prerogatives of the pro-slavery interest ; and, situated as 
he was, with all his noble powers, gifts, and acquirements, it was his un- 
fortunate destiny to prefer the former. 

From the same views and convictions, I now declare with philosophic 



APFENDIX. 10 

certainty tliat the roehuiiation of fugitive slaves in New-Kngland by any 
legislative or executive authority in our General Government is a moral 
impossihiUtij. It cannot be done without an ovei-powering physical force, 
nor without the shedding of I'ivers of blood. And politicians may ma- 
noeuvre about this point as long and as adroitly as they can, and still it 
will remain an impregnable Gibraltar to them ; and they, and all men, will, 
in the end, be forced to acknowledge the truth of what I now uttor, aiid 
conform not only theii- opinions but their actions to it. 

If slaveholders can, by any means, persuade their fugitive slaves 
voluntarily to return to them, they will be free to do so; but the day of 
rheir power to enforce the involuntary return of the fugitive to bondage 
and servitude has passed away, at least from tlie precincts of New-Eng- 
land; audit only remains for the slaveholding States to determine whether 
they will peaceably relinquish their claim to the political right of recla- 
mation, or violently break up tlie Union, and thus add to the loss of their 
fugitive slaves, the more serious, if not ruinous loss of the advantages 
and privileges of the Union ; and this, too, inevitably at the sacrifice of all 
the great principles of human rights and liberties for which our Rev- 
olutionary War was waged, and successfully accomplished ; and which 
are for ever stereotyped in our Declaration of Independence, and upon 
which all our civil and political institutions are founded; and, also, at the 
hazard — if not the inevitable certainty — of continued and bloody wars be- 
tween the slaveholding and the free States, which must necessarily and 
speedily result in the emancipation of all the slaves in this country; and, 
in all human probability, the subjugation, if not utter devastation, of the 
slaveholding States. 

If the relinquishment, on the part of the slaveholding States, of their 
claim to a political right to recover their fugitive slaves required the sac- 
rifice of any natural right, or of any great principle of civil liberty, then, 
indeed, they might, with honorable and heroic persistence, maintain that 
claim to all extremities ; but it is not so. They are called upon to sacri- 
fice no natural right, no great principle of civil liberty. The right which 
tlusy contend for is purely political, resulting from compact and compro- 
mise, — a political right to maintain a perpetual sacrifice of the natural 
rights of others, and in violation of the fundamental principles of all our 
free institutions ; and this, too, in the face of the notorious truth that that 
political right was yielded them solely on the avowed condition that slavery 
should never be extended in this country beyond the area in which it 
existed at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. 

Is this teaching " that because the South has violated merely an implied 
obligation, therefore the North is at liberty to violate an express one ?" 
Surely not ! 

S. GRAHAM, 

Norlhainplon, August lOilf, 1850. 



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